The self-made books will be without words, there will be a lot to discover with all our senses. These books talk by forms, signs, colours, sequences and different materials.

BAOBAB

UNDERNEATH THE BAOBAB, the fairy tale tree

Multicultural performance. Storytelling and music stimulate the sense of listening, together we create a colourful book about Africa.

One 2 hours lesson for kids from 4 to 10 years.

Theatre and art workshop with Petra Probst, a German artist and illustrator and Zigou Bâ, musician and painter from Senegal. The children will listen to a fairy tale from Senegal in Wolof and Italian language, and to African rhythms and songs. Then they will make drawings and collages and create together a big book about AFRICA.

This workshop is inspired by the book SOTTO IL BAOBAB by Petra Probst, Sofia Gallo and Zigou Bâ and by the beautiful paintings of 600 children of 3 primary schools in Turin, published by Sinnos Editrice, Italy ISBN 978-88-7609-133-9.

Abdou Bâ and his grandmother, a shaman and healer of the village; the birds of the forest that find shelter on the branches of the holy Baobab; Samba and his magical pot….These are the protagonists of the suggestive stories told by Zigou Bâ, an artist and storyteller from Senegal, Western Africa.

LOVE DIFFERENCE

“LOVE DIFFERENCE” (Porta Palazzo, Turin)

Multicultural art project on citizenship and integration of handicap:
for kids and teens from 7 to 16 years

3 lessons of 2 hours each

Technique: drawing, painting, collage, photo

Character Portraits

“You will never meet two completely identical faces.
Beauty or ugliness are secondary as they are relative.
Every face is a symbol of life and deserves respect.
…look with attention at everyone of your schoolmates
and you will notice that they are all different;
and this difference is a great thing.
It is a good opportunity for mankind.”

(“Racism Explained to My Daughter” by TAHR BEN JELLOUN)

BIZARRE alphabets

Art workshop for kids from 6 to 9 years.

2 hours

Technique: collage. Altogether we will invent a new primer at the end.

ARCIMBOLD-I

Art workshop for kids from 7 to 10 years.

2 hours

Technique: collage. Stories of personal memory and fantasy will form a plot.

Material grannies and Grandpas

Workshop for kids from 7 to 10 years.

2 hours

Art project on memory with recycled materials from REMIDA, Turin.

ZEPHYR

ZEPHYR, stories blowing in the wind...

Our colourful multi-languages

Multicultural art programs for primary school

“different but the same”

“There are magical words:
It’s difficult for them to stand still on the paper,
That’s what happens to many children.
They cannot keep still, silently they slip away
out of the pages and try to get into our life.
If we are able to listen to them, they can tell us a lot.
These are colourful words,
they want to be shouted, or whispered,
they want to be music,
but they don’t want
that anybody ever will forget them.”

Workshop for teens adults and teachers

Journey into emotions

Travelling with the Mistral, the colour of emotions

A book, sponsored by the City of Turin tells about this experience: Travelling with the Mistral by Petra Probst, 2012, publisher ARTEBAMBINI, Italy

Foreword:

“...This is the documentation about the construction of the world, the magic of cognitive, emotional and social development of children, who are not left to their unguided spontaneity,
but supported by a ‘natural’ method. I’m sure about that. This book might also give an important contribute to teachers’ training. A method not taught by words which usually ignore the way how children do make experiences, but based on the connections to facts related to the world and to their proper lives, on the obstinacy to search poetically bizarre explanations where elements of truth have to be understood. It is very important to give inputs that children can develop“

(Francesco de Bartolomeis)

We will travel into ourselves, in our own stories, in our emotions, it’s a sort of travel diary about an art & dance workshop that took place in a multicultural primary school in Turin in 2008/2009 with regional public funds. It was realized with 200 children in a multicultural context.
This is an invitation to encourage similar school projects for the healthcare and safe development of childhood.

Emotional intelligence

“...we shouldn’t leave emotional education to chance but introduce innovative courses at school that teach self control, self awareness, empathy, the ability to listen and to cooperate. Therefore it is necessary to activate emotional skills that may help children to live their emotions with intelligence.”

(Daniel Goleman)

Artistic books

Teachers’ training for preschool and primary school

About 8 lessons 2 hours each

For a “didactic of slowness” and an “active pedagogy”!

Come and make a book with me!

The self-made book as an expression of a self-portrait.

We make a lot of different books…The book becomes a beloved object…Love for books is contagious!

“The teachers who activate these projects with children get aware of it as soon as a book takes part in a writing project. It is amazing to realize how much the interest in writing increases. Writing quality becomes a target for children because their book in which is composed their text is a treasure and rather they don’t want to get rid of it.
However if teachers want to communicate to children their enthusiasm for books, it is important that they experiment the joy of book making by themselves.”

(Paul Johnson)

The awakened eye

pathways to reactivate our inner eye

A drawing and photo workshop for teens and adults

6 or 8 lessons 2 hours each

“NECESSITÀ DEL VOLTO”

«My vision of the world? I want to tell it by a fairy tale:
There’s an elephant coming into a village where blind persons live.
In the evening in front of the fireplace everyone tries to describe the elephant.
Who has touched his nose will say: it’s a long tube.
Who has touched his ears: it is like a carpet.
Who has touched a leg: it’s a pillar. Everybody has a different vision of what he touched.
All of us are like this: blind in front of the universe. How many people actually are able to see?»

(Evgen Bavcar)

Stating first of all that observing means knowledge and that the act of observing is effective if immersed in the full context of feeling this workshop offers a way to approach the portrait passing by exploring our own face, the condition of darkness, the role reverse between who is observed and who is the observer. All this with the intent to amplify the concept of portrait, to vivify the act of seeing, to reduce the distance of who is taking photos and who is the subject, to activate the confidence in the proper feelings and in the proper technical ability: so the tactile dimension is reactivated by drawing and by working in group

Bullies! No thanks!

Teachers’ and students’ training for preschools, primary- and secondary school

When the class group becomes a community!

This training can prevent from the distress of relating to other people and create a sense of belonging to a group.

“
When a teacher is able to create a positive climate in class the project will be characterized by authenticity, appreciation, and participation, when he or she believes in the constructing tendency of the individual being and the group….the quality of learning will change, comprehension will be quicker… Feelings – positive, negative, uncertain - will enter in the experience of the school class. Learning becomes real life
”

(Carl Rogers)

Associazione Culturale IBTG, Scuola Gestalt di Torino

We are a group of professionals teaching creative expression. Our approach makes people more aware of how to improve their quality of life by learning to see the world without interpretations and moralistic judgements. They learn to “trust“ their own emotions without getting overwhelmed by them and to stay positively in contact with the others.